Looking Like This
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Playing at being one another had been okay for a while. Maybe even *fun*, but faced with the potential of an eternity wearing the wrong face, things might start to feel a little different.
1. Chapter 1

_This was inspired by a post on tumblr about what might happen if Aziraphale and Crowley couldn't switch back bodies. I posted it a while ago there and on AO3, and just somehow... forgot about this site. Oops. So if you've seen this before, that's why. I'm going to write more, one chapter is almost done, but updates after that may be little sporadic._

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**Looking Like this**

"Right," Crowley said, offering his hand to Aziraphale, "Swap back then."

Aziraphale took the hand and through the physical contact, the two of them slipped back into their own bodies. Only… they didn't. Crowley frowned, gripped Aziraphale's hand a little tighter and they tried again.

Nothing. They each remained firmly where they were.

"Uh… you're not doing something funny, are you?"

"Me?!" Aziraphale asked, shocked at the implication. "I was about to ask if you…"

"Yeah, okay." Crowley interrupted. It wasn't Aziraphale, he had known that already, but he had still needed to ask, to make sure. That look of panic on his friend's… well, on his own… face had been all the answer he needed. He broke contact, took a deep breath and tried to focus. "Right. Again." For a second time, he offered his hand, and for a second time Aziraphale took it.

For a third time, nothing happened.

Well, not nothing. This time, Crowley was hit by a sudden and unshakable feeling that things had gone very wrong.

"Well, shit," he said.

He looked at Aziraphale, or rather, he looked at himself. Even with the shades covering his eyes, it was easy to see that his friend was feeling the exact same thing.

"Shit," Aziraphale confirmed. His hand slipped from Crowley's and came to rest on the bench between them.

"I don't get it," Crowley said. "What went wrong?"

Honestly, he had a few ideas. The first of which was that Heaven and Hell weren't actually the clueless idiots they had assumed them to be, and that their respective forces had dreamed up this little twist as some kind of perverse form of amusement. He dismissed the idea almost instantly — it wasn't nearly cruel enough for either side, it was more the kind of thing that he himself might have dreamed up to amuse himself on a rainy afternoon — but the thought refused to bugger off, sitting irritatingly in the back of his mind.

"I don't know," Aziraphale said. He stared at his… at Crowley's… hand in confusion. "I don't know," he repeated, a little more quietly but with an edge of panic beginning to creep into his voice.

"Okay, don't… let's just try again" Crowley suggested. He didn't hold out much hope of attempt number four being any more successful than attempt numbers one through three, but he wasn't going to let anybody say that he didn't try. He had spend a lot of time in that body; he had grown attached to it.

Aziraphale hesitated this time before he took the hand, but eventually grabbed it and held on as tightly as he could. The shades did nothing to disguise the fact that he was screwing up his entire face in concentration. It wasn't a good look on him.

Nothing. As Crowley had expected.

"What are we going to do?" Aziraphale said. "I don't want to be you!"

"Oh," Crowley folded his arms and glared pointedly at the angel, "Well, I'll try not to take that as an insult! This was your idea, as I recall."

Technically, it had been Agnes' idea. Or maybe Agnes had simply watched it happen and written it down in order to give the idea to Aziraphale, who wouldn't have had the idea if it hadn't been predicted by… Crowley stopped trying to figure it out before it started to make his head spin. Which wasn't actually something that most demons did on a regular basis, despite what happened in the movies.

Aziraphale shook his head. "No, I mean… look, it was fine for a little while. It was fun even. You know, walk a mile or two in someone else's shoes, wait for the inevitable attack by the joint forces of Heaven and Hell, take a bath in holy water." He grinned, remembering. "I asked for a rubber duck," he added. "I made the archangel Michael miracle me a towel!"

Crowley couldn't help himself, he laughed out loud at that image. "Well, I guess that part was a success at least. They should leave us alone for a while, anyway." That didn't help with the current problem, of course.

"That doesn't help with the current problem, of course," Aziraphale said. "I can't be you."

"You think I want to spend the rest of eternity wearing a white suit and a bowtie?" Crowley countered. "I mean, look at me!" He ran the back of his hand down the front of the suit as though he was brushing away some speck of dust.

"You never had a problem with the way I looked before, as I recall," Aziraphale noted.

It wasn't so much the way the body looked as it was the style that was uniquely Aziraphale's. He had no problem looking at it, walking around next to it, eating dinner opposite it. What he did object to was wearing it for himself. It was… humiliating. If this lasted much longer, he was going to have to go shopping at the first available opportunity. "I don't have a problem with it," Crowley insisted. "It's just… not very me, you know?"

"That's the root of the whole problem."

Crowley sighed. That was the kind of statement that it would be impossible to argue with. "Yeah, you got me there," he said instead. He got to his… to Aziraphale's… feet and held out a hand, "Come on, no point sitting around here all day worrying about it, is there?"

Aziraphale frowned, but took the offered hand and allowed Crowley to pull him to his feet. "You had another venue in mind?" he asked.

Honestly, no. All he knew was that swapping back wasn't working and he didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on a park bench trying, and failing, to perform what should have been a relatively easy demonic miracle. It was frustrating, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was lurking, watching, and probably laughing about it. "Not really, no," he said. "But once the whole swapping back thing was done, I was going to try to tempt you to lunch. What do you say?"

Aziraphale frowned, then pushed up the sunglasses that covered his distinctly inhuman eyes. "Looking like this?"

"Not like we've got a choice in the matter, is it? Whatever we do right now we're going to be doing like this. Might as well do something we both enjoy."

Aziraphale considered it, then sighed and shrugged. "Fine. Why not? Who knows, maybe if we try again on a full stomach, it'll work." He paused, then smiled. "How about the Ritz? I believe a table for two has just miraculously come free."

Honestly, Crowley wasn't sure that food, or time, or anything else, was going to make a difference. It was as though something had fundamentally changed, some shift in reality that had made the switch back a physical impossibility. He wasn't going to give up though. It had taken millennia, but he was finally happy with his hairstyle; he wasn't about to let Aziraphale loose on it for longer than was absolutely necessary.

"Sounds great," he said. "Shall we?"

He offered an arm to the angel at his side, who took it with a smile, and they walked together through the park to their waiting table.


	2. Chapter 2

Food, it turned out, was just as enjoyable in Crowley's body as it was in his own. Some of the flavours seemed a little… off. Not bad, in fact in some cases quite the opposite, just not exactly as he had expected them to be. He wasn't sure whether that was a result of the body he was currently inhabiting, or a new chef at the Ritz. Either way, the meal was very enjoyable. This came as a huge relief to Aziraphale for two reasons.

The first was that until he had being able to sink into the familiar pleasure of a good meal — although admittedly the wine had probably helped a great deal too — he had been on the verge of a full-blown panic attack the likes of which he hadn't experienced since the very early days on Earth, when he had given away a flaming sword and then convinced himself that he might have accidentally done the wrong thing.

The second reason had to do with a certain lie that Crowley had told him a couple of millennia after that.

Aziraphale realised, in a distracted kind of way, that Crowley was talking. In fact, he seemed to be halfway _through_ talking about something, and Aziraphale had absolutely no idea what he might have missed. He blinked, then tried to concentrate.

"… don't you think?" Crowley finished, then looked at him expectantly, waiting for a reply.

Oh dear. Aziraphale cleared his throat to buy himself some time. There were only two ways to answer that; either yes, or no. Unfortunately, given the events of the past few days, as well as their current situation, subjects of conversation would be unpredictable.

He wished he had some idea what he would potentially be agreeing with…

"Are you okay?" Crowley was leaning forward slightly, across the table, peering at Aziraphale with obvious concern.

That, at least, was a question he knew the answer to. Aziraphale looked up from his lunch, into his own face, and then down at his plate again. It was disconcerting, seeing himself looking back at him. He wasn't sure he liked it. Playing at being one another had been okay for a while, maybe even _fun_, but when faced with the potential of an eternity wearing the wrong face, things were starting to feel a little different.

He took another long sip of his wine. "I'm fine," he lied.

Crowley peered a little harder, if such a thing was possible.

Aziraphale tried to look away, but it was difficult to ignore him. Wherever he looked, he could see the demon out of the corner of his eye, and almost feel the concern radiating from him. "Stop it!" he said. "Really, Crowley, that's not helping."

Crowley sat back a little and stopped with the peering. "Right, so you're fine. Totally believable, that. So what were you thinking about just then? Don't think I didn't notice that look of panic when you realised you had no idea what I was talking about."

So, he hadn't been as subtle as he had thought. Well, that or Crowley knew him too well. Aziraphale stuffed a forkful of pasta into his mouth. "Nothing," he insisted. "Well, other than _this_ whole situation, of course." He indicated his… or rather Crowley's… body with a wave of his hand, just in case there was any confusion as to the situation he was referring to.

"Nuh-uh." Crowley shook his head. "At one point you were smiling. I doubt you'd be smiling if you were thinking about _our_ little problem."

Aziraphale sighed. Crowley _definitely _knew him too well. Or maybe just the right amount… "Fine," he said. "If you must know, I was feeling relieved. If you remember, sometime around 203 AD you told me that food rotted the moment it touched a demon's lips. I'd always kind of assumed you were lying, you suggest going out for dinner far to often for it to be true, but it's just a relief to _know_. I'd been worried about you, that you were being denied one of life's simple pleasures."

A grin spread slowly across Crowley's face, one that looked so distinctly _Crowley_ that it was instantly recognisable even in the wrong body. "Oh yeah, I did say that, didn't I? Yeah, I was messing with you. In fact, I'm pretty sure I _told_ you I'd been messing with you. Like right after."

"Yes, but making two contradictory statements only confirmed that you were a liar. There was no real way for me to know which statement was the lie and which was the truth."

"So you've been worrying about me?"

Aziraphale nodded.

"For two thousand years?"

"Give or take."

"You're ridiculous. You know that, right?"

Of course did knew that. He had known it for centuries. Longer, actually. There was something inherently ridiculous about an angel and a demon even talking civilly to one another, let alone being friends, going out to lunch together. Going up against the joint forces of Heaven and Hell and saving the world together.

For all he might have denied it in the past, Aziraphale really did consider Crowley a friend. A good friend. His only friend, even. After all that time, it would have been impossible not to. Which was why he had been worrying about him.

"It wouldn't make any difference, you know." Crowley said.

"Hmm?"

"If I _had_ been telling the truth back then, it wouldn't make any difference to you right now. You're not a demon, you just happen to look like one. If you were, you wouldn't have survived that holy bubblebath you just took."

Oh. Crowley was right, of course. That had been the essence of their whole plan. It wasn't the body they were wearing that was angelic, or demonic, it was the being inside it. He was no more a demon now than he had been last week.

He nodded. "Just to check, you're not trying to tell me that food really _does_…"

"No, of course not." As though to prove a point, Crowley picked up his fork and finished the last of his lunch with a flourish. "I mean you're not a demon, angel. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh. Well, no. I _did_ know that of course." And he had. But certain things are inherent to the body, and others to the soul. He had wondered, before the swap, whether Crowley's eyes might be linked to his demonic nature and might follow him into Aziraphale's body. He had been relieved to find that they had not; it would have made their plan much more difficult to pull off.

Crowley smirked. He put down his knife and fork on the plate and sat back, waiting for Aziraphale to finish. Aziraphale frowned, he was normally the one perusing the dessert menu while he waited for Crowley to slowly clear his plate.

"Well that's definitely for the best," he said as he pushed his own, unfinished, plate away. Crowley's stomach just didn't have the capacity that his own did. "I might not be a particularly good angel, but I'm quite certain I'd make a much worse demon. Even if I have picked up a few of the necessary skills thanks to our little Arrangement."

"Ah you'd be fine," Crowley told him. "Tell you what, if you ever fall, I'll show you the ropes."

Aziraphale supposed he should be insulted by that, but after the events of the past week, he couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't going to fall. After everything that had happened, both Heaven and Hell were suitably freaked out about the two of them and he was quite sure that they were going to be left alone for some time. But if he did ever fall, Crowley was right; he _would_ be fine. If they couldn't swap back into the correct bodies he would be fine. Whatever happened to either of them from here on out was going to be okay, because they had each other.

He raised his wine glass to Crowley, who frowned, confused, but raised his own in response. Aziraphale was feeling oddly good right now. He had a feeling that was going to change when he needed to sober up, but that could wait until he got home.

He wondered which home that would be. He longed for the comfort of his books, but for the sake of keeping up appearances, he was probably going to have to go back to Crowley's place. Well, on the positive side, maybe he could do something to help the poor, terrified houseplants while he was there.

"What are you smiling about now?" Crowley asked.

"Oh, I'm just thinking about what to have for dessert," he lied. "What do you think, can I tempt you?"

Crowley gave him a disapproving look. "You're not funny," he said. He shrugged, "But yeah, go on then."

Aziraphale's smile widened as he called the waiter over. "Last time I was here they did a meringue that was absolutely…" "You'd better not," Crowley said.

"Why?"

The demon shrugged. "I just can't stand the stuff, the texture, the flavour, it's just…bleh." He shuddered theatrically.

"I love meringue," Aziraphale said.

Crowley slung an arm over the back of his chair in a way that Aziraphale would never. How he managed to look so relaxed was a mystery. "You _did_," he said, "and when we sort this out I'm sure you will again, but you're in _my_ body right now, so…"

"Bleh."

"Bleh," Crowley confirmed with a nod.

"Oh." Aziraphale frowned. He didn't know whether it worked that way, but he didn't want to take the risk. Not right now. He had achieved the correct level of intoxication to keep him from worrying about their… situation for the time being. Not enjoying something that he usually did, would remind him of the more uncomfortable implications of the situation, and he didn't want to risk that. Not yet. There would be time for that later. "Well, that's disappointing. Anything else I should know?"

Crowley smiled widely. "Oh, plenty. But sticking to the subject of desserts… I dunno. Custard's pretty gross too."

"Well, that's something we can both agree on at least. As for you, very little is off limits when it comes to food, but given the circumstances I strongly suggest the meringue."

"Bleh." Crowley said again as he accepted the dessert menu from the waiter, who looked a little confused by the conversation that had been taking place as he had cleared their plates.

The chances of the information getting back to Heaven or Hell via their waiter was slim, but just in case, Aziraphale quickly performed a little miraculous memory alteration. It wasn't strictly allowed; messing with memories dangerously skirted the edges of playing with free will, but it was such a minor change it wasn't going to hurt. They would have to be more careful what they said in public in future.

In future… He was already thinking like this was going to last.

He took another sip of his wine and turned his attention to the desserts.


	3. Chapter 3

The Bentley really _was_ back.

It wasn't that Crowley hadn't _believed_ Aziraphale; after all, he had seen the bookshop, whole and unburnt, when it should have been a charred mess cordoned off and still damp from the hoses that had been used to extinguish the fire. He knew things had been put back more or less the way they had been before the aborted apocalypse had taken place, but it was that 'more or less' part that had been bothering him.

Aziraphale wasn't exactly known for his automobile expertise; until sometime in the mid 60s he had still been referring to cars as 'horseless carriages' on occasion. He could have missed all kinds of discrepancies with the Bentley that Crowley would have picked up on instantly.

And so, until the taxi had dropped the two of them off outside Crowley's flat, it had still been difficult to believe that the car that he had loved and taken care of for so many years; the car that he had purposely driven through the wall of flame that was the M25, and that he had held together through sheer force of will the whole way to Tadfield; the car that he had been convinced he had lost forever, was really back.

He might have gasped. Just a little bit.

"I _did_ tell you," Aziraphale said with a smug but very happy smile that looked completely out of place on the face he was currently wearing.

Crowley touched his fingertips to the black paint and caressed the bonnet lovingly. "Yeah, I know," he said. "But it was hard to believe it until I saw it with my own two…" he hesitated. They weren't _his_ own two eyes, they were Aziraphale's. "Anyway," he said. "You'll get it when you see the bookshop."

The car looked brand new; fresh off the factory floor. The paintwork gleamed in the sun in a way that it hadn't for decades. For ninety years, Crowley had been looking after that car, carefully miracling away every scratch and bump, keeping the water and oil at optimum levels — without actually having to check them or top them up, of course — and once, because he had wanted the full car owner's experience, even washing it by hand on a Sunday morning. He hadn't enjoyed that very much, although there had been something oddly satisfying about polishing the paintwork afterwards.

Still, over the years it had aged in subtle ways. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but there was a newness to the car now that hadn't been there last week; something that he recognized from a long time ago. He wasn't sure he liked it. Age had lent the car a certain kind of dignity that Crowley feared it might take a couple of decades to get back. Right now, it felt like something out of a period drama; not quite authentic.

He doubted that anybody else would notice.

He opened the door and slipped inside. It even smelled like a new car. Not like a new car now; all chemicals and plastics and pine scented air freshener. No, it smelled like an _old_ new car. Like a new car was supposed to smell. He inhaled deeply, and touched the steering wheel reverently.

He noted with interest that the car was already fitted with a CD player. It wasn't _actually_ brand new, then; those hadn't exactly been fitted as standard when he had first bought the car. Over the years, he had made changes, adding first a radio, then a tape player, and finally — when cassettes became hard to come by and all the music he had ever loved had been transformed into Queen — he had miracled in a CD player and started buying it again in a new format.

There was something else too. He frowned as he leaned in to get a closer look. Two USB ports were built into the dashboard, looking as though they were supposed to be there, and the display on a screen that definitely hadn't existed the last time he had been in the car, said something about 'bluetooth'.

"What's a bluetooth?" he asked.

Aziraphale, still standing outside the car at the driver's side, shrugged. "Is it some kind of fish?" he asked. "Or perhaps a whale?"

Crowley shook his head. It sounded like it could be right, but something like that had no place anywhere near a car. Especially a car of this quality. "Yeah maybe." He had been thinking it was something to do with mobile phones. "Are you getting in, angel? Or are you planning on standing in the middle of the road all day? I thought you wanted to see your books."

"Oh! Right." Aziraphale hurried around the front of the car and clambered in.

Crowley put the key in the ignition, but didn't turn it. He hesitated. Something else was different too. The car was the wrong size. The pedals were that little bit too far so that he had to stretch his legs to reach them, and a glance in the rear view mirror showed that it was angled slightly wrong. In fact, _everything_ seemed that little bit off. He fumbled for the lever to move the seat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aziraphale look at him. "Problem?" he asked

"No," Crowley insisted, grinding his… Aziraphale's… teeth a little. "Nope, no problem at all."

He couldn't find it. It occurred to him that he had never had to adjust anything in the car before; it had always just fit him perfectly.

He moved the mirror; that at least was easy, then swept a hand along the side and then the front of his seat. Nothing. "You're too short for my car," he said.

"I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale said. He sounded mildly offended.

"I mean…" Crowley waved a hand indicating the pedals of the car, then shook his head. "Your legs don't… the seat's too far… There should be a lever or a button or something around here to move the seat forward."

"Really? In a car of this age?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley scowled at him, not sure exactly why the angel of all people — who as far as Crowley was aware had never even sat in the drivers seat of a car, let alone driven anywhere — would have the first clue about the features that cars of different ages should have. He was right though. Crowley wasn't sure whether he had simply been lucky with the car before, or whether he had unconsciously made changes to make it more comfortable to drive, but there probably wouldn't have been any real way to move the seats around back then.

Well, that was easy enough to fix. He turned the key in the ignition, then reached down the side of the seat again. His fingers immediately found a switch that hadn't been there a moment earlier. He slid it forward and the seat moved to the correct position. "Yeah, really," he said. He put the car into gear, pulled out into the quiet road and a nice, steady 70mph.

"You changed your music," Aziraphale noted.

Crowley listened. Aziraphale was right; it wasn't Queen. He turned up the volume a little. "Must be the radio," he said. But it wasn't.

"No, I don't think so," Aziraphale told him. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out three other disks.

"Try something for me; put one of those in instead," Crowley told him.

Without questioning the request, Aziraphale took out the first CD and replaced it with the other one. The first notes of Handel's _Water Music_ filled the car.

"This makes a pleasant change," Aziraphale said.

Crowley shrugged, and swerved to narrowly avoid a cyclist. "I guess the CDs are as new as the car, technically they haven't been in here long enough. Don't get used to it, in about two weeks we'll be listening to _Another One Bites the Dust_."

But in the meantime, Aziraphale was right; it did make a nice change.

He squinted a little as he turned a corner into the sun. It seemed unusually bright today.


	4. Chapter 4

The shop was indeed back, just as Crowley had assured him it was. Aziraphale found it difficult to muster the same sense of awe as Crowley had with his Bentley. It wasn't that he didn't love the shop; he did, but he hadn't been there when it had burned down. He hadn't seen the fire, or the resulting destruction. In his mind, nothing much had changed.

Despite not really feeling as though he had lost it, he was still very glad to have it back. It was home. The offer of staying with Crowley had been tempting but it wouldn't have been the same. He would almost certainly have taken him up on it though, if the shop really had been gone. For a little while, at least. Until he could find somewhere new and start again.

Or maybe he wouldn't have started again. He had been collecting his books for centuries, since before he even had a shop to display them in. It would have been heartbreaking to have to start again, and even if he had, some of them were irreplaceable.

Luckily, the one that Crowley was currently manhandling was not one of them.

The demon was slouched in an armchair, one leg slung over a wooden arm in a way that didn't look at all comfortable. He was flicking absently through a book selected at random from the shop, from one of the more prominently displayed shelves filled with books that Aziraphale didn't mind selling. Crowley had opened the book wide enough to crack the spine, and was turning the pages far too quickly to be actually reading, each time with a loud whisper of paper scraped against paper that made Aziraphale wince internally.

He took a sip of his tea and cleared his throat, trying to ignore it. "What do you think; should we try it again now, or leave it a bit longer?" He held out a hand hesitantly.

If he was honest, the idea of trying to switch back again made him a little nervous. Every time they tried and it didn't work, he became that little bit more certain that it wasn't going to work, and he didn't want to think about what that would mean for the two of them.

He was beginning to regret sobering up after lunch.

Crowley looked up from his book, eyes focussing first on the offered hand, and then moving to Aziraphale's face. Or, more specifically, his eyes. "You took the glasses off," he said.

Aziraphale allowed his hand to drop back to his side. "It's a little dark in here with them on," he said. He offered the hand again, more insistently this time.

Crowley opened his book a little wider and lay it face down, pages splayed open, on the table. Aziraphale tried not to wince. He reminded himself of two things; that Crowley was definitely only doing it to annoy him, and that Crowley had deliberately chosen one of the books he knew didn't mean anything to him.

Crowley looked at him for a long few seconds before he spoke. "Look," he said, "Here's the thing. Yeah, I'll try it, but honestly, I don't think it's going to work."

Oh. He'd said it. Aziraphale hadn't thought they were going to do that yet.

He had, of course, been relatively certain that one of them was going to say it sooner or later, but he had imagined a few more attempts first, a few days of playing along with the idea that it was going to work eventually, that they were just doing something wrong and sooner or later they would realise what it was and fix it.

But no, Crowley was just going to go ahead and say it, without any kind of warning. Just fire it out into the world, give voice to the idea, make it real.

The worst part was, he was right. Aziraphale had felt it too. It wasn't going to work. When they had attempted the switch back in the park, it had been like hitting a brick wall. It was like trying to switch with a brick wall; it was simply impossible.

'Impossible' had never really featured in Aziraphale's vocabulary before. No, that wasn't true; every word in the English language featured in his vocabulary, as well as all the words in a number of languages that he had spoken before English existed and a fair few that were spoken around the world today.

Not French though; he had always had a bit of trouble with French.

"Aziraphale?"

The concept though, the idea of something being impossible, was not something he had needed to deal with very often. At no point during his 6000 year tenure on Earth, had Aziraphale come up against something that he just couldn't do. It was one of the perks of being an Angel; the ability to miracle himself out of all kinds of pickles. And if for whatever reason he hadn't been able to — memos from Heaven about frivolous miracle usage arrived every so often — he always had Crowley to help him out.

And so the fact that he couldn't do this, that neither of them could do this, was worrying. No, it was more than worrying, it was downright panic-inducing.

"Hey. Aziraphale?" A hand touched his, and the unexpected contact pulled him out of his thoughts before they could spiral too far.

He blinked, and sucked in a breath. Crowley had rearranged his position on the chair so that he was seated almost normally. He leaned forward a little, staring at him with an expression of concern.

Aziraphale looked back, examining the face before him. It was a good face. Friendly, expressive; it was the kind of face you instantly wanted to trust. He had grown quite attached to it, he knew how it worked, how to make it do what he wanted, which was his best side for those ridiculous selfies that Crowley insisted on taking with him from time to time. It was his. He didn't want to have to get used to a different one.

He offered his hand for a third time. "We should try again," he said.

Crowley hesitated. Only for a moment, but for long enough for Aziraphale to notice. Then, he reached out, took the hand in his own and squeezed gently. He nodded, and the two of them both tried to will themselves from one vessel to the other.

Predictably enough, nothing happened.

Crowley shot him a look that said 'told you so', and he was right. He had.

He let go of Aziraphale's hand, and in one fluid movement, reached up, untied the bowtie that had still been fastened around his neck, pulled it off and placed it on the table. That done, he opened the top buttons of the shirt and sighed in relief. "Been wanting to do that for hours," he said. "And no offense, but if we're going to be stuck like this, I'm going to have to go shopping as soon as possible."

He'd done it again; suggested that the switch might last. Or worse; that it might even be permanent. Aziraphale picked up the untied bowtie from the table and started to fiddle with it just to give him something to do. "Likewise," he said. "And you can hardly comment on my wardrobe choices," he said. "Everything you're wearing is so tight I feel like I can hardly move!"

"Well, at least it doesn't look like…" Crowley began, then stopped, clamped his jaw shut, and fell into silence.

"Like what? What exactly were you going to say my clothes look like?"

The demon shook his head. "Forget it. Never mind. Bickering isn't going to help anything, is it? Tell you what, we'll both go shopping, I'll help you pick out something you like that suits me, and you can do the same for me."

Aziraphale slumped in his seat a little. He didn't want to go shopping. He had clothes. Perfectly good clothes that he had taken care of for 180 years, he didn't want new ones. He wanted his old ones to fit him again.

Or, no. Because that was something that could easily be arranged. It wasn't like he needed to worry about what Heaven thought of his frivolous miracles anymore. But he didn't want his clothes to fit him, he wanted to fit them. Whatever had gone wrong, he wanted to fix it. He wanted to be himself again. "I don't understand," he said. "We had no trouble switching in the first place. Why can't we do it again?"

At times like this, a book full of nice and accurate prophecies might be useful. It was unfortunate the book had ended around the supposed end of the world. Agnes had suggested the switch, perhaps she could have given some clue as to how to resolve their resulting problem.

"Dunno," Crowley said. He removed Aziraphale's jacket and placed it carefully over the back of his chair, then started to unbutton the waistcoat. "Got a few theories though."

Aziraphale snatched up the jacket before it creased, produced a coat hanger, and hung it up instead. He waited for Crowley to elaborate on his theories, but that appeared to be the end of it. "Well? he asked. "Would you care to share them?"

A shrug. "Well, 'a few' might have been an exaggeration. It's more like one theory. Hell." He shrugged again. "Or Heaven. Or, who knows, maybe both of them working together. I mean, for two sides that are supposed to be enemies, they seem to have more than a few common goals. Not to mention that 'help the other side execute their disobedient citizens' treaty." He paused. "So I guess that's three theories, technically."

And none of them were correct. If either Heaven or Hell knew what they had done, the two of them wouldn't be sitting in the bookshop bickering about clothes. "They don't know what we did," Aziraphale said.

"You sure about that? Sure sure? You think your performance was spot-on? Completely indistinguishable from the real thing?"

For a brief time in the mid 1950s, Aziraphale had joined an amateur dramatics society. He had rather enjoyed it. At one point, he had based a character almost entirely on Crowley, and the performance had been a roaring success. Still, he supposed it was possible he had given the game away somehow.

"Because mine wasn't," Crowley admitted. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it was good, but there was a moment there when Gabriel was trying to get me to kill myself when I seriously considered just killing him instead. You should have heard how he talked to y…" he stopped, and folded his arms. "Anyway, they might have noticed that."

"Honestly, I'm reasonably sure I would have felt the same way, if I'd been there," Aziraphale told him. "I certainly tried to splash a few demons with holy water while I was pretending to be you. As long as you didn't actually…"

"Nah. Gave it some serious thought though. Honestly, I don't know how you put up with that for so long. I mean, say what you will about Hell, but at least you know were you stand with them."

He had a point, but not one that Aziraphale wanted to discuss right now. "They don't know," he insisted. "If they did, do you really think they'd just let us head back to earth and then start messing around stopping us from switching back again just for… what? For fun?"

"Probably not. Not high on either of their agendas, fun."

"Exactly. No. They'd have either sent me upstairs and you down and got on with the executions, or they'd have just taken care of it where we were. I mean, I was in Hell. There isn't exactly a shortage of Hellfire there. You were in Heaven, they could have easily found some holy water. They wanted us dead. The only reason we aren't, is that they didn't think they could."

"So if they haven't done this, what do you think's causing it?" Crowley asked.

Aziraphale shook his head. There was a difference between knowing a theory was wrong, and having a better theory to replace it. He had no idea what was preventing them from switching back, he only knew what wasn't. "I don't know, that's the problem. If I knew, I'd… I'd…" he hesitated. "I'd do something about it."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Well, I don't know that either. It would depend entirely on what the cause was." He slumped in his chair, feeling utterly defeated. "Maybe we should get drunk again," he suggested. "I have my best ideas when I'm drunk."

"That," Crowley told him, "is an excellent idea."

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_C'mon guys, drop me a comment if you're enjoying the story..._


	5. Chapter 5

Unfortunately, the problem with drunken ideas is that although they seem to make a lot of sense in the moment, the instant one sobers up and actually thinks about them with a clear head, it becomes embarrassingly obvious how terrible they really were. The other problem with drunken ideas is that they are rarely co-operative, meaning that drinking with the intention of obtaining them is, more likely than not, going to end up with a very drunk angel, a very drunk demon, and a grand total of zero ideas.

Or at least no ideas that would help to resolve the situation.

"Adam," Aziraphale said triumphantly.

Crowley considered this. "The antichrist kid?"

"Former antichrist," the angel corrected. He was slurring his words slightly, and his hair — or rather, Crowley's hair — was a mess. Crowley wasn't sure why, all he could think of was that the angel had been messing with it, and had inadvertently undone the careful styling. They were three bottles of wine in, and had used the last of the good stuff and moved onto the slightly newer vintage. It wasn't quite as nice, but it got the job done just as well.

"Yeah. But doesn't the 'former' part mean he hasn't got powers anymore? And even if he did, why would he waste his time like this? Hasn't he got better things to do?"

Aziraphale frowned, thoughtful, then shook his head. "I don't know. I have no idea what children do for fun."

"Well, I think we can safely say it's not this," Crowley assured him. Although, honestly, he wasn't sure either. He reached for his wine glass, found it empty, grabbed the bottle instead and poured himself another. He tipped the remainder of the bottle into Aziraphale's glass to top it up, then took a long sip.

"It's a shame Shadwell doesn't really have a magical finger," Aziraphale mused. "Maybe he could use it to, you know…" he pointed at Crowley to demonstrate, then flinched. "Or maybe not. He seemed rather intent on using it to banish demons, not help them. "

Crowley squinted at him. The fact that he was drunk enough for there to be two identical images of his own face spinning before his eyes did nothing to make him feel better about the situation. He was going to have to sober up soon, or he was going to fall asleep. The last time he had done that, he had woken with a hangover so bad that he hadn't even been able to muster the energy to miracle it away. He had lain in bed for hours, or possibly longer, until Aziraphale had shown up uninvited and helped him out.

"What are you talking about, fingers?" he slurred.

Aziraphale shook his head. "Never mind. This isn't working, is it?"

As loathe as Crowley was to admit it, Aziraphale was right. "I'm sobering up," he said. "But not all the way. Just enough that I can only see one of you again. This is weird enough without another me swimming around in front of me. I don't swim."

"Me neither," Aziraphale said. "It's something I always wanted to try though, but I never managed to find the time."

Crowley forcibly ejected around half of the alcohol from his bloodstream and felt instantly better. He reached for his glass and took another sip. "You never found the time? In six thousand years, you never found the time?"

Aziraphale shrugged. "You know how it is, things kept coming up."

Crowley tilted his head forward to allow his sunglasses to fall down his nose a little, then peered at the angel over the top. He was halfway through the manoeuvre when he remembered that he wasn't wearing them. It was too late; he was committed. He peered anyway.

Aziraphale either didn't notice, or was too polite to comment on it. "I know, I know," he said. "If things kept coming up for six millennia, I obviously wasn't that interested in trying it. Honestly, I kept getting to the edge of the water, dipping my toes in, and finding it too cold."

It occurred to Crowley that he had no idea why they were talking about swimming.

"But I hear they have heated pools in the city," Aziraphale continued. "Maybe I should try again."

"You don't want to do that," Crowley told him."

I don't? Oh." Aziraphale frowned, thinking about it. "Why not?"

They're one of ours." Although, no, because he couldn't really include himself in anything that belonged to Hell anymore, and he didn't particularly want to. "Hell's, I mean. And they really put their hearts and souls into it. You've got kids peeing in there, adults peeing in there. You've got changing rooms where the floor just won't dry so that it's impossible to put your socks back on comfortably, and you've got hairdryers that are fixed to the wall so you've got to do gymnastics to get your head in the right place, and vending machines that never have the one thing you want, and…"

"Alright, alright. I get the idea," Aziraphale told him.

"And chlorine," Crowley added, because he was on a roll now. "Nasty stuff, chlorine. You know humans used it to kill each other? Much lower concentrations of it in a pool of course, but snakes have a very sensitive sense of smell, so do us both a favour and wait. Swim when you get your own body back."

Aziraphale went very still. "If," he said, after a long pause.

"If what?"

"If I get my own body back."

Crowley hesitated. Aziraphale was right. "I, uh… yeah," he said.

Aziraphale sighed deeply, then made a visible effort to sober up too. He straightened up a little in his seat. "Do you have any idea why we were talking about swimming? We were supposed to be coming up with theories."

"Not a clue." Crowley tried to think back through the conversation, but got nowhere. "Back to theories, then?" Not that either of them appeared to have any.

"Maybe…" Aziraphale said hesitantly. "I mean — this isn't going to be helpful at all, but hear me out anyway — maybe it's just one of those things."

Crowley stared at him in disbelief. Now he was a little more sober, he was going to need something better than 'one of those things'. "One of what things exactly?" he asked. "One of those 'oops I accidentally swapped bodies with someone and we can't swap back' things? Yeah, those things happen all the time. Never mind, eh?"

"I mean," Aziraphale said. He raised a hand to his head and ran his fingers quickly through Crowley's hair, mussing it even more. Crowley gritted his teeth. "I mean maybe it's something you can only do once, you know? Maybe that's why Agnes said to choose wisely, because whatever we decided, we'd have to live with it." He paused. "Or die with it, I suppose."

Crowley didn't like the sound of that. He looked down at his… Aziraphale's… hand and flexed the fingers a little. "I don't like that theory," he said.

"It doesn't matter. We don't get to change things because we don't like them."

"Says the angel who just averted the apocalypse because he didn't want to lose his favourite sushi restaurant."

Aziraphale gave him a disapproving look that was almost a glare, and Crowley had to admit that with his current face, it looked pretty impressive. "That's not the only reason, Crowley,"

Crowley smirked, "Oh, I know. There's that little Italian bakery two streets over as well."

Aziraphale's glare grew a little more intense. Which reminded Crowley, there were a couple of things he was going to need to talk to him about if this situation carried on for much longer. He held up his hands in mock defeat, "Alright, alright, sorry. But all joking aside, I don't like that theory."

He really didn't, and as far as he was concerned, that was a perfectly acceptable point of view. It wasn't like Aziraphale had arrived at the idea after months of research, or that he had some kind of precedent to call upon. All he had done was thought about the wording of the prophecy and made an educated guess. No, not even an educated one, it was just a clutching-at-straws style guess. And he had already used that particular line in the prophecy to back up the idea of switching in the first place.

"I don't like it either," said Aziraphale, "But it's all we have at the moment. Maybe when things have cooled off a little, I could contact Heaven, see if they could shed any light on the problem. I'm sure somebody will have the answer."

Crowley's mouth dropped open in disbelief. "Oh yeah, great idea. 'Uh, 'scuse me Gabriel, me and my mate the demon here swapped bodies the other day to trick you into thinking we were impervious to hellfire and holy water, but now we can't switch back. Don't s'ppose you could help us out, could you?' Yeah, I can see that going really well; definitely won't end in another execution attempt."

"That is not what I was suggesting at all," Aziraphale told him. "For a start, I certainly wouldn't approach Gabriel. And I'd have to leave it a long time before I even thought about going back there, of course, by which point we'll hopefully have sorted the whole thing out for ourselves."

Crowley shook his head. What Aziraphale didn't seem to understand — or perhaps didn't want to understand, was that there would be no more contacting Heaven, or Hell, for either one of them. And he understood why that was going to be a difficult idea for the angel to get used to, he really did, but he needed him to understand it.

"Aziraphale, you can't contact Heaven," he said, as gently as he was able. "Not ever. We've burned our metaphorical bridges, there's no going back. You get that, right?"

Aziraphale nodded. "Of course I do."

"They don't forgive," Crowley continued. "They might claim that they do, but they don't. Take it from someone who knows."

He was struck, as he was from time to time, by a memory. One of pain; of a sudden and intense loneliness so deep that it threatened to destroy him from within, and of the sensation of falling. It was a memory of confusion, of fear, and of loss; of everything he had once been burning away, twisting into something new, and it had hurt. A memory of waking up on the filthy, damp ground of Hell, to a reality changed forever, and knowing there was nothing that he could do about it. No chance of reprieve; he hadn't even been given the chance to explain.

He closed his eyes briefly, and with effort pushed the memory aside. It still hurt, even after all that time. It probably always would.

"They don't forgive," he repeated.

As he opened his eyes, he found Aziraphale staring straight at him, his eyes wide with understanding. They were not Aziraphale's eyes, and the strangeness of the situation hit him anew. He looked away, embarrassed. Without meaning to, he had given too much away. He hadn't, and wouldn't, voice the thoughts in his head, but somehow Aziraphale had understood him anyway.

"I won't contact them," Aziraphale promised him. "Ever."

And this time, Crowley believed him.

The angel sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. "Ever," he repeated, and Crowley honestly couldn't tell whether Aziraphale found the idea terrifying, or exhilarating. Probably a little of both.

Crowley glanced at his wrist and found his watch absent. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed at the arm that was currently Aziraphale's instead, and manoeuvred it so that he could see the time. "It's late," he said.

Aziraphale nodded. He fiddled with the strap of the watch, unfastened it, and handed it over without comment. "Yes. I suppose I should be going." He made a move to get to his feet.

"Uh… you should be going?" Crowley asked, momentarily taken aback. One or the other of them noticing the time was usually his cue to leave. "You want to leave me here? In your shop?"

"Well," Aziraphale frowned. "Want to might be a little strong, but I don't have a lot of choice. Just because we're not talking to them, doesn't mean our respective head offices aren't keeping a close eye on us. It might look a little odd if 'I' move into your flat and 'you' decide you prefer the bookshop."

He was right of course. It was so obvious that Crowley would have slapped himself, if he had been the kind of person that went around slapping himself. He wasn't. He was more like the kind of person that would go out of his way to make sure nobody realised when he failed to notice something. "Yeah," he said. "Obviously." He fastened the watch around his wrist. "So, how were you planning on getting to my place then?"

"Well…" Aziraphale began, then faltered. "I suppose I'll… I mean…"

One thing Crowley was one hundred percent certain of was that Aziraphale wasn't getting hold of the keys to his Bentley. He was, of course, under no illusions that the angel couldn't get into and drive the car without the keys if he chose to do so, but Crowley was willing to bet that he wouldn't do that.

Now he thought about it, he wasn't sure Aziraphale even knew how to drive. Another consideration that wouldn't technically matter if Aziraphale decided to put his mind to it, but again, Crowley couldn't see that happening.

"And anyway, I've got plants there than need looking after," Crowley added.

Aziraphale relaxed at that, on slightly more familiar ground. "Oh, I'm completely capable of looking after plants. After all, I posed quite realistically as a gardner for a number of years, and the gardens of the American Ambassador's residence never looked better."

"Yeah, but don't forget I was there too," Crowley reminded him. "I saw what you thought passed for gardening. You miracled the plants better — that's cheating, you know. And you told the boy to be kind to slugs and greenfly and all the other garden pests." He had also never once heard Aziraphale talk to the plants under his charge, not only did he not shout at them, he never even exchanged a 'good morning' with them. Not even the ancient oak tree he had been so fond of sitting under during the summer.

No, Aziraphale wasn't getting anywhere near his plants. Not unsupervised, anyway.

"So what do you suggest?" Aziraphale asked.

It was obvious that Aziraphale already knew the answer, he just couldn't suggest it himself. That was just how they did things. He looked away, stealing glances at Crowley out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the offer he knew was going to come.

Crowley was half-tempted to suggest something else just to see what the angel would do. He didn't. "I suppose we could always both go back to mine. Y'know, if you wanted."

"And that won't be suspicious, the two of us spending the night at your flat?"

He shrugged. "Nah. It's not like they don't know what's been going on now. Honestly, it's probably what they're expecting to happen."

This was the part where Aziraphale turned him down. The part where he said he couldn't. The reasoning behind the rejection always varied; that Heaven would disapprove, or that someone they didn't want to notice might notice, or even just that Crowley himself was moving too quickly — after almost six millennia that one had stung particularly badly. Crowley braced himself, preparing for an uncomfortable night in the bookshop. Possibly the first of many nights in the bookshop, if they couldn't fix their little problem.

"Oh, I don't…" Aziraphale began, then hesitated. He glanced away, then back again, and then nodded. "Actually Crowley, that sounds like a perfect solution."

Crowley stared. That wasn't right. Aziraphale wasn't sticking to the script. Of course, he no longer had a reason to; Crowley himself had made him promise that it was over between him and Heaven now. He was a free agent. And so was Crowley.

"Yeah?" he said, because he was an idiot, and apparently he wanted to give Aziraphale the chance to change his mind.

Aziraphale nodded. "Yes," he confirmed. "But only if you sober up before you get behind the wheel."

Crowley got to his feet, reached into the pocket of Aziraphale's jacket that was hanging from a coat hanger on a cloak rack that hadn't been there when they had entered the room, retrieved his keys and headed for the door, very deliberately not looking behind him to make sure the angel was following.

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_Comments are loved_


	6. Chapter 6

"Right," Crowley said as he turned the handle to open the door of his flat. He hung back a little, like he was waiting for Aziraphale to enter first. "So, if there's any melted demon on the floor, I'm sorry. The cleaner only comes three times a week, and I don't think yesterday was her day."

Aziraphale glanced around, hoping that none of Crowley's neighbours were around to hear the conversation.

"Don't suppose you'd go in first, would you?" Crowley asked. "Just to check there's no holy water laying around?"

Aziraphale nodded. He had been in the flat very briefly that morning, purely for the purpose of keeping up appearances before he had gone to meet Crowley in the park. He certainly hadn't noticed any melted demon, but he knew from being forced to watch the bathtub full of holy water being tested in Hell, that once a demon was destroyed, it left no trace. The water in the tub had been as clear and pure as the day it had been created, when he had stepped into it, the demon that it had destroyed gone, without a trace.

He hated that that could have been Crowley. Even if they were trapped like this forever, at least it had saved his friend from that terrible fate.

He also hadn't noticed any holy water when he had been in the flat that morning, but then, he might not. A damp patch on the floor might not even register to him, but if it was a _holy_ damp patch, and Crowley happened to step into it… it didn't bear thinking about.

"You have a cleaner?" he asked, choosing to pick up on _that_ rather than the melted demon aspect of the conversation.

"Of course I do. You can't really imagine me dusting, or getting the marigolds on and scrubbing the toilet, can you?"

Actually, now that Crowley mentioned it, he could. Aziraphale smiled.

"Hey! Stop imagining that!" Crowley snapped. But it was too late.

"You could always just miracle the place clean," Aziraphale told him.

"Sure I _could_, Crowley agreed, "But then what would I tell Irena? She cleaned for the last guy that lived here, and she's got bills to pay. Have you seen what rent costs in London nowadays? She's a single mum, you know. Kids don't come cheap."

Aziraphale nodded. It made sense, in a Crowley kind of way. Which was to say, it made no sense at all when you considered that Crowley was a demon, and wasn't supposed to be worrying about whether or not some random Londoner could afford to keep her kid in new shoes and Coco Pops, but that once you actually got to know Crowley, it felt completely normal.

Aziraphale stepped through the door first and looked around carefully, taking in the whole area. "Where would the holy water be?" he asked.

"I put the bucket over the door to the office," Crowley told him. The demon had followed him in a few steps, but was still hanging back, not wanting to accidentally tread in a holy puddle.

"Nothing," Aziraphale told him.

"You're sure?"

He checked again, to make certain. He reached down and touched the floor by the door with his hands. It was completely dry. "Nothing. That must have been undone too, when Adam changed reality."

"Not undone," Crowley assured him. "Holy water is permanent destruction, not even the antichrist could undo that. He's just made it so I don't have to deal with the mess."

Of course Aziraphale knew what holy water meant. He had worried about it almost constantly for decades after handing over that flask to Crowley. "It must be very inconvenient to have to worry about things like that," he mused.

Crowley was still glancing a little nervously around the flat. "Inconvenient?" he asked. "Not really. It's not like you find holy water everywhere, is it? I mean, this was a very specific situation that's probably not going to be repeated." He frowned. "Hopefully."

It was a lot more common on Earth than hellfire though. Whichever genius in Heaven's planning department had decided to grant the ability to create it to any human willing to spend a couple of years studying at a seminary had earned, in Aziraphale's opinion, a slap across the face at the very least.

What they had probably got was a commendation.

He looked around again, not searching for potential death traps this time, simply taking in the decor. He hated it. It was stark and cold. All hard edges and open space. There was no warmth there, no love. It was as though it had been created to give a certain impression, and the impression that it gave was not of the Crowley that Aziraphale knew.

"It's… nice," he said.

"Shut up."

Right. Nice was a four letter word. "Sorry. I mean it's horrible. Of course."

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Trying too hard, angel."

"It lacked a certain something though. It's not at all cosy."

Crowley smiled at that. "Yeah, well. Good. Demons don't exactly do 'cosy', you know."

Aziraphale, who had seen that particular demon curled up under a blanket in the back room of his shop on a particularly chilly January evening, sipping cocoa from a tartan-print mug, simply nodded. "Of course not."

"Anyway the flat's exactly the same as the last time you were here."

And it was, more or less. Not counting that morning, Aziraphale had been in the flat only once before. It made sense, from the point of view of maintaining their cover, that he didn't go there. If an angel turned up and found Crowley in the bookshop, there was an argument that it was a public place; it was entirely possible for the demon to have wandered in during a shopping trip. If another demon showed up at Crowley's place and found him sharing a bottle of wine with an angel… well, it might be a bit more difficult to explain away.

Crowley turned to look at him, then frowned. "Glasses," he said. "You're not wearing them."

It took Aziraphale a little longer than it should have to work out exactly what Crowley meant. When he did, his hand moved instinctively to his face, as though to check for the sunglasses. Unsurprisingly, he found them absent. "I left them at the shop," he said. He had forgotten. He thought of Crowley's snake-like eyes. He barely noticed them anymore. On the rare occasions that the demon removed his sunglasses around him, Aziraphale simply saw Crowley's eyes. He supposed that the average human might have a different reaction. "Sorry."

Crowley shook his head. "It's fine, I should have noticed sooner. Luckily, it's the middle of the night." He crossed the room, opened a drawer in a desk and pulled out another, identical, pair. "Keep them with you," he said.

Aziraphale took them, and hooked them onto the front of his shirt with one of the arms.

"No," Crowley told him. He picked up the glasses, opened then, and gently placed them over Aziraphale's eyes. "It's a habit you're going to want to acquire," he explained. "Start working on it now."

It felt suddenly too dark in the flat. Aziraphale touched the glasses, but resisted the urge to lift them up and peer underneath the frames. "Really? It hardly seems necessary in here."

"It's not," Crowley told him. "But like I said, pick up the habit."

Aziraphale wanted to argue, but he found that he didn't have the energy. He sighed, and sat down in the nearest chair, leaving the glasses where they were. "So, what should we do now?" he asked.

Crowley appeared to think about it, then shrugged. "Get some rest," he said. "We can think more about this in the morning."

He didn't know the exact time, but Aziraphale was reasonably sure that it was already morning, technically. He glanced out of the window and even through the tinted plastic covering his eyes, he could make out the sky lightning over the London skyline. "I don't tend to sleep," he said. "Never really saw the point."

Crowley nodded. "I know. Do it anyway. You'll feel better in the morning, trust me."

Aziraphale doubted that. On the few occasions that he had tried sleeping, he had woken groggy and more tired than he had been the night before, with an imprint of a crease from his pillow running down his cheek .

"It's not like you need to eat either, is it?" Crowley added. "Never stopped you doing that. Sleeping is one of the great pleasures of life. Imagine just… not having to think, not having to worry. Imagine being able to switch it all off for a while and just relax. Really relax."

"I relax," Aziraphale told him. His favourite method was with a glass of red, a good book, and a comfortable armchair. Honestly, he found the idea of losing time disquieting. One moment it was the middle of the night, the next the sun was up, he felt as though he needed to brush his teeth, and someone was trying to gain access to the shop.

Crowley shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "I'm going to get my head down for a few hours though. Who knows, maybe an idea'll come to me in the night."

He turned and walked away. Aziraphale watched him go. He waited for several minutes, unsure what to do, then sighed deeply and took off the sunglasses. He placed them on the coffee table, got up, and went to explore.

The kitchen was woefully empty. It looked as though someone had an idea of what a kitchen _should_ look like, and had created it, but missed several important points. The fridge was disappointingly empty, and had not even been plugged in. The kettle gleamed brand new, not a hint of limescale. Aziraphale suspected it had never seen a drop of water before in its life. He could see his reflection in its chrome surface and it felt strange to see Crowley's face staring back at him. He moved away.

The cupboards were bare. He found a chocolate bar on top of the unused microwave, but left it there. What he was really in the mood for was toast. Hot toast with butter and jam, and a cup of tea. But Crowley's flat had no tea, no bread, and no toaster.

Disappointed, he left the kitchen behind and explored further.

In another room, he found some of the most beautiful plants he had ever seen. Lush and green, without a blemish or imperfection anywhere. He touched the leaves, trying to decide whether they were real, or some clever artificial plants. They could make quite realistic ones nowadays. But the leaves felt completely real underneath his fingers as he examined them.

Oddly, though, it almost felt as though they were trembling.

In another room, he found more plants. Smaller, and with minor imperfections, but no less well taken care of. He wondered why they had been separated.

Crowley hadn't been exaggerating when he had said that he didn't read. There didn't appear to be a single book in the whole flat. Underneath the coffee table, where he had deposited the sunglasses, he found a stack of very old magazines about equally old cars, but a few minutes flicking through them was quite enough for him.

In the bathroom, another room that appeared never to have been used for its intended purpose, there was a mirror on the wall above the sink. It was large enough to show the head and shoulders of anybody standing in front of it. A simple, minimalist design with a thin black frame around well-polished glass. Aziraphale wondered what Crowley's cleaner did with her time when she visited his flat.

He approached the mirror slowly, creeping up on it as though he thought that sudden movements might startle it, then looked at his reflection.

The first thing that struck him was the eyes. He stared for a moment, unable to look away. He liked Crowley's eyes, he really did. He wasn't sure whether he had ever told him that before. Probably not; it wasn't the kind of thing they talked about. He liked them, but he had never really considered before what it might be like to see them staring back at you from a mirror. Strange. It was very strange.

Of course, that might also be down to the fact that they were looking at him from entirely the wrong face. He didn't look like Crowley. Or rather, he _did_, because he was wearing the demon's body, but now that he came to look, really look, at himself, he couldn't understand how Hell had been fooled.

He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but there was something. Some difference. The expression on his face, the way he carried himself. He straightened himself up to Crowley's full height and tried to rearrange the look on his face into something more like he recognised. It wasn't right, but it was better. He supposed he had been trying harder when he had been in Hell. After all, both their lives had literally depended on it.

Maybe it was the hair. He had never really worried about his own hair, it was simply there on the top of his head. He got it cut every couple of months, and once in a while some particularly persuasive barber had convinced him to try something a little bit different, but for the most part it was just a case of washing it, drying it, and letting it get on with things for itself.

Crowley's current style — and now that he thought about it, probably every style that he had ever seen the demon wear — took a little bit more effort. And apparently some of that effort involved not doing… whatever Aziraphale might have done over the course of the day to put it into its current state.

He touched the red hair carefully, trying to place the strands back to where they would usually stand. They flopped forward onto his face uncooperatively. Sighing, he tried again, working in a minor miracle as he coaxed his fingers through the hair. Better. Only… not much. It still wasn't _right_. Whatever he had done had changed the texture of the hair, and he could see the difference as well as feel it.

He gritted his teeth, and tried again. Once again, he failed.

Frustrated, he gave up, rubbed his hands through the mess on the top of his head and resolved to ask Crowley for some tips when he woke up. Whenever that was going to be.

He wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since the demon had excused himself and gone into the bedroom, but it wasn't _that_ long. Especially not by Crowley's standards; he had been known to sleep for years at a time. He wasn't likely to do that now, of course, not knowing that Aziraphale was waiting for him, but there could still be hours longer to wait.

Through the window, the sky over the city had lightened a little more, but sunrise was still hours away, and at this time of the year the sun tended to rise before most of the people. He didn't imagine Crowley to be an early riser.

He really wished that he could have some toast. Or better yet, toasted teacakes dripping with melted butter. He could miracle himself some up, of course, but it was never the same. It was always some pale imitation that made him want the real thing even more.

Bored, with nothing to read, nothing to eat, and nothing to do, and frustrated at Crowley's hair's refusal to do as it was told, he gave his reflection one final glance, then turned away and headed for the bedroom. The door was ajar; not open, but not closed either. He pushed it open and peered inside.

It was dark in the room, but somehow he could still easily make out the large bed covered with black sheets. Silk, he was sure. He rolled his eyes; the demon could be such a cliché sometimes. His head rested on a pillow, and Aziraphale's light-coloured hair made a striking contrast to the black of the pillowcase.

Aziraphale crept in quietly. It wasn't like he had anything better to do, and if Crowley was so sure that sleep was good, maybe it was worth trying. Crowley had positioned himself right in the centre of the large bed, but there was ample room at either side for another person. Aziraphale sat down on the edge of the bed and ran a hand over the sheets. They felt soft, smooth, and cool to the touch.

He noticed that Crowley had changed his clothes for sleep. Nothing he would have worn in his own body would have fit Aziraphale's, and so he had presumably miracled himself a new pair of pyjamas for the night. Aziraphale didn't bother; it wasn't like he intended to spend a lot of time sleeping, anyway. Most likely he would lay down for a few moments, find that he was still awake, and get up again.

He lay down on his back, careful not to move too much and wake the sleeping demon, then rested his head on a pillow, and allowed his eyes to close.


End file.
